Originally Posted by Shelbie
The Touch and Sew was the first machine I bought with my babysitting money as a 15 year old and I loved it! My understanding now is because it was not an all metal machine, some of the internal plastic/nylon gears, parts become brittle with age and break. Repairs may be expensive or difficult/impossible to fix. I would check out this before deciding on a Touch and Sew. The machines do sew well but the self winding bobbins may give trouble.
This is so true! My husband bought me a Touch-n-Sew as a newlywed in 1974. I sewed everything on it....my clothes, his shirts, curtains, quilts, kids' clothes. I sewed on every kind of fabric there was too...cottons, polyesters, double knits, and even repaired bluejeans. I used straight stitch, zig-zag, and the decorative stitches. That machine got a tremendous workout and lasted me almost 20 years. But then it started having problems and eventually wouldn't sew, just made a clunking sound. I took it to a repair shop and was told that the plastic gears had broken and the cost of repair would be almost the same as the price of a new machine. I couldn't afford to fix it at the time, and eventually got a newer machine, but couldn't bring myself to part with my old friend. Maybe someday I can have it restored. We share lots of memories.